Building a Pitts 12

A lot of value comes from a personal visit with the folks that build this plane every day of the week. Seeing first hand their shop and talking with the craftsman behind the aircraft builds confidence and answers questions on the project in a way that the blueprints never can.

Kevin’s son Kallin escorted us to the wood shop of Tom who builds the Kimball wings. His building tips and offer to take “as many pictures as you would like” will cut many hours from the project. They say a “picture speaks a thousand words”. Roy’s opportunity to see inside two nearly completed wings, ask Tom and Kallin questions, and learn expert technique and tricks of the trade were worth every mile of the long road trip.

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An added bonus to the hangar visit was the opportunity to see progress on the Lockheed Vega they are restoring for the Fantasy of Flight Museum. This all-wood beauty is the same model Wiley Post flew on many of his record-breaking adventures. It sports the paint scheme of his famous Winnie Mae. This particular plane was owned by a couple of oil companies prior to a purchase by General Electric who removed her original aluminum fuel tanks and replaced them with tanks of Fiberglas composition. The metal prop was replaced by a solid wood propeller. It was then flown by GE for radar testing and became the world’s first stealth aircraft. When completed this will be the only flying example of a Lockheed Vega in existence. There is no doubt why Kermit Weeks chose this aircraft for his fleet of historically significant planes.

With a trailer behind the RV, we looked a little like the Beverly Hillbillies trekking across the country. We traveled from Missouri to Florida to pick up the kit. Fuselage, tail feathers, canopy, sheet metal, and lots of boxes were loaded on the trailer and stuffed into every compartment. The Canopy got special treatment. It rode home on the sofa. Everything made it home safely, including the utility knife that was left laying on the trailer deck. It some how rode the entire distance right where it had been left. One would find this particularly amazing if they had followed us down the road.